


snow

by wendlaswound



Category: Falsettos - Lapine/Finn
Genre: Angst, M/M, Oneshot, Winter, music inspired, whizzer dies, whizzvin, yeah its sad ok dont come at me
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-03
Updated: 2018-02-03
Packaged: 2019-03-13 04:16:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,027
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13562619
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wendlaswound/pseuds/wendlaswound
Summary: Whizzer dies on the first day it snows. But Marvin's been cold for far longer.





	snow

**Author's Note:**

> It's snowing today and What Sarah Said by Death Cab for Cutie was stuck in my head, so... this.

            Whizzer died the first day it snowed that year.

            The weeks leading up to it were frigid and frozen, but there was no white to balance it, to give the cold a reason to steal away their breaths and turn their fingers blue. It didn’t matter to Marvin. He’d been numb and shivering before the holiday decorations had gone up around the city. He hadn’t felt warm since Whizzer fell the first time.

            And now that he was gone, Marvin didn’t feel anything at all.

* * *

 

            Charlotte recommended him a therapist before Whizzer had even gotten worse. It was just someone in the hospital, and since Marvin never left, he couldn’t avoid it. When Whizzer slept, he found himself in a cabinet-in-the-wall office, laying on a couch with a box of tissues in his lap, going through grief counseling before there was anything to grieve over. He would have ditched, but Charlotte set up the appointments, and he wasn’t that difficult to track down if he happened to “forget”.

            The sessions always went the same way. “Hello, Marvin. How are you doing today?” the therapist, who Marvin still didn’t know what to call, started with.

            “Fine.”

            “Really?”

            “Yep.”

            “…”

            “…”

            And that was about it.

            But as Whizzer’s frame thinned and his face paled, and the dark rims around Marvin’s eyes sunk deeper, the answers and questions changed, and Marvin at times just silently stared at the ceiling, not hearing anything at all.

            He knew he was insecure, too dependent on what others thought of him, susceptible to depression and aggression. He learned that much over the years. A pit of widening sadness grew in him, steaming in his gut, every time he asked himself, _“Who am I without Whizzer?”_

Neither Marvin nor the therapist had an answer to that.

            Marvin and Whizzer’s usual bickering had nearly stopped altogether, settling for a tense, shared silence with their hands clasped and their eyes focused out the window. Marvin remembered one instance where he’d fallen asleep with his hands on Whizzer’s chest and his head at his side. He’d woken to Whizzer stroking his hair and softly singing along to the song on the radio.

            Marvin had started crying as soon as he had regained enough consciousness to realize where he was and who he was with. He shook with sobs but didn’t move his head. Whizzer did not waver for a moment and went on as if nothing was amiss.

            Marvin hated to cry, especially in front of the people he loved. It meant he was truly at his worst and couldn’t keep it hidden any longer. He was ashamed that that was how Whizzer had him for the last weeks of his life. A shattered, hopeless shell of himself. He could barely say Whizzer’s name anymore without falling to pieces.

            Whizzer kissed him on the head before he fell asleep, and when Marvin finally got up, he turned off the radio and went to his therapist’s office.

            He didn’t say a whole lot, and yet he still said everything.

            The therapist was quiet for a long while after, letting Marvin hide his tears behind his hands.

            When he finally spoke, he stated simply, “This… is love.”

            Marvin froze. The therapist said something else, but those three words reverberating deep in Marvin’s heart, one he’d known for a while and still didn’t feel he was allowed to use. The scope of the past several years fell into perspective, and Marvin was shocked into stillness.

            When the therapist finally stopped talking, Marvin managed to raise himself from the couch slowly, give the other man a nod, and hold his back straight as he walked back through the hospital to his lover’s bedside.

            Whizzer was still sleeping when he got back, but Marvin slipped himself into the bed and held Whizzer tightly. Though he couldn’t hear, Marvin whispered “I love you,” before settling his chin in the crook of Whizzer’s neck and sleeping with a steady heart for the first time in a long time. Just on the brink of consciousness, Marvin felt Whizzer’s arms adjust themselves around him, with just the softest, “Love you too, Marv,” before everything went dark.

* * *

 

            The cold air was a slap in Marvin’s face. The tears didn’t come until then, and now he could pretend they were from the shock of the wind and not the immense pain wracking through his body. His chin was dropped down against his chest and his eyes were shut, the grief behind them hot and itching. All the warmth from Charlotte and Cordelia’s arms was long gone. Marvin didn’t know what to do with his hands, so they fell limply by his side.

            Outside, everything was exactly the same, but Marvin didn’t recognize anything. With a pain, the white settled in, and the tears came stronger, as he heard Whizzer’s last words again.

            _Damnit._ Marvin’s fists clenched at his sides. He felt the noises of life whirling around him, the cars, the passerby, the gentle hum of the wind, though he was deaf to all of it. He could only see the last hours of Whizzer’s life, as the abyss of what was to come was too overwhelming to comprehend.

            He would never hold Whizzer’s hand again, never feel his kiss, or wrap his arms around the man he loved. Would he ever love again?

            Would he live long enough?

            And Jason. Oh, _hell._ He still had to tell Jason. Jason was a smart kid, he’d known that Whizzer had a bad lot. But Marvin had known too, and look at him.

            Marvin shook his head. No. Not now, not in the cold. Not when he was this broken. He needed more time, just a little, before he could face anyone again.

            He was startled to feel a brush on his face that wasn’t a tear freezing. He looked up.

            Snow.

            Marvin stood in silence for just a moment, then the noise flooded back in and so did the tears, as he heard Whizzer’s voice echo again in his mind, the last thing he would ever hear from the voice he would have died to hear again.

            “Hey, Marv… it’s snowing.”


End file.
